Summarise the following into brief notes under the sub-headings of Fashion, Education, The Military, Industry, Trade, The Government and Legal System.
As you read through this information and underline the main words with a pen, write any of the above letters in bold (F,E,M,I,T,G,L) on the pages next to any information about that letter or sub-heading. For example put an M next to any points you find about the Japanese modernising their military (Army or Navy.)Then when you write out your notes, put all the M points together, under the sub-heading: The Military.
Remember to revise the page you were given about how to make good point form notes.
(Main heading) The Westernisation and Modernisation of Japan from the Restoration of the Meiji (Emperor)until 1900.
Japan changed more in the four and a half decades to1900since the arrival of Commodore Perry inEdo Harbour (modern Tokyo Bay)in 1853 than in the three centuries of Tokugawa control.
The pressure and motivation for this change was the Western threat to Japan's sovereignty (Independence – where they rule and govern their own country and make all the laws) themselves, and the need to reverse the unequal treaties imposed on Japan by the West in the 1850's.
Thus, under the slogans of‘Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Military’ and‘Civilization and Enlightenment’, the Meiji leadership attempted to industrialize the nation and strengthen the army to protect their national independence or sovereignty. The military was the first to modernize in terms of dress, technology (weapons), the hiring of foreign military advisors and introducing conscription.
Ex-Samurai often moved into the Police and education. The navy encouraged the development of heavy industry in ports and dock-yards, for example building iron ships. The Japanese copied many ideas from the British navy when they built up their own modern navy.
Through the movement for westernisation, adopted by government they hoped to impress on the West that Japan was now an equal partner in world affairs and so could set its own tariffs (import taxes on imported trade goods) and administer its own laws to both Japanese and foreigners living in Japan.
The Japanese wanted to find out why the Western countries were so strong and industrialised with superior technology. So the new Meiji Government, officially sponsored diplomatic missions abroad where such representatives as Prince Ito Hirobumitravelled to the USA and Europe with some 40 other Japanese government officials. They copied from different western countries any ideas, systems or institutions that they thought would suit the Japanese people. For example they copied the French system of justice.
Translations of western books and the presence in Japan of foreign teachers were all agents for change in the second half of the nineteenth century. Some 3,000 foreign teachers and technicians were invited to Japan between1870-1890.
The government and the army, were the first to make changes to clothing in Japanese society. A regulation of 1872 ordered the substitution of Western dress for the ceremonial traditional Japanese robes of court nobles, and even the Emperor had appeared in Western dress in 1870. The Japanese copied the military ways of the Prussian or German army.
The Emperor Meiji in Western Military Attire Page 1
However basic clothing did not change significantly for most Japanese. This is because the new western clothing was expensive, hard to sit down in on the floor if wearing it, and the high button shoes were slow to take off each time you entered a house.
More noticeable were the changes in hairstyles with the short cut replacing the topknot.
For women, blackened teeth and shaved eyebrows began to disappear quickly from the cities by 1890.
Men cut their hair, they began to wear Western style hats and carry umbrellas and pocket watches. Imported English wool began to be used for coats and shawls.
Changes occurred in Japanese housing as well, but instead of western style housing the Japanese copied the innovations seen in the samurai houses of the earlier Tokugawa period. They started to use the paper-on-wooden-frame room dividers and sliding wall-style panels seen in the earlier Tokugawa Samurai houses.
In Tokyo and the larger cities that new, Western style concrete, stone and brick buildings and bridges were built. These were often designed by foreign architects. Beer companies opened up in the 1980s and in the towns, hairdressers andpublic baths were common.
In education compulsory attendance was started in the 1870s for both genders and regardless of class for four years. In 1900 education was made free. All these schools employed foreign teachers and were extremely westernised.
Modern printing presses replaced wood block printing.Oil paintingwas introduced to Japan in the Meiji Period.
New Westernsportsmade their appearance in Japan for the first time, including baseball,cricket, football, athletics and rowing from the 1870s.
In 1873through the taxation system class divisions were abolished. There was then more social mobility.
Industrial production increased (factories). Younger sons and daughters from the countryside often migrated to the towns to find work in new industries. The government invested in railways, shipping, telegraphs, ports, lighthouses, banks and post offices.
A national country wide legal system was adopted. In 1882, a criminal code (system of laws) was adopted that was inspired by the Napoleonic model and drawn up under a French advisor. This ended torture and introduced public trials. It confirmed individual property ownership and individual rights instead of obedience and obligations to the old local feudal Lords or now rich land owners.
The Japanese adopted a Constitution in 1889 that outlined how their system of government operated (worked) and was to be structured. It was a copy of the German system and also guaranteed certain basic rights.
By 1899Japan had fought a successful foreignwar against China in Korea (1894-5)and the unequal treaties with the Western Powers were revoked (abolished). Now all of the people in Japan, even foreign westerners living in Japan, had to follow the Japanese national laws.
(Modified from: page 2